Growing Your Business Event!
We are just getting our blog series up and running again after being very kind to ourselves by taking most of the Summer and a good chunk of Autumn off. So much has happened since we last spoke. The Hurling world has been dumped on its head with no sign of Cork, Kilkenny or Tipp come the first Sunday in September and a super Galway team overcoming a similarly excellent Waterford team by a few points. The “Donald” is still winding up his enemies. “Little Rocket-man” is still taking the bait and viewing some tweets as a declaration of war! And you have the equally unstable Vladimir in Russia engaging in military practice games. Europe seems to be the only normal place but still has Brexit and Angela and Ireland is thankfully quite normal with our biggest concern being the rain at the ploughing!
We wanted to give you a little taster of an upcoming event for the food and beverage industry that we are holding with AIB on the 4th October next. This is our first event so hopefully it will go well for us and we are confident it will, given the line-up of speakers that we have. We will have;
Ger Foley
Ger has been helping many food companies over the last 15 years. This would involve helping these companies to raise finance, and reviewing, understanding and monitoring KPI’s. This has proven to be key for business owners as it’s so important that they understand their key figures in a non-complicated way. With this information they know what products they make most money from and if their input costs are too high for a particular product. He recently undertook a margin and costing review with a client which has resulted in improved focus on margins and overall profitability for that business. Ger has changed the way many of our food based clients look at their figures. Gone are the days of doing accounts after the year end as this has been replaced by having up to date numbers during the year. This has proven very beneficial for clients so that they can make sound business decisions based on how they are doing. It is also very beneficial when they are approaching lenders as the lenders are happy that their customers are on top of their figures as it makes it easier for them to get credit approved.
Alan Ryan
Alan [AIB Bank] has been working in the South East area for many years and has a lot of experience when it comes to business lending. He is very keen to get business done once he is happy that the numbers and the business makes a sound case for credit approval. Once he believes in your project he will do everything for you to get the credit you need. Alan will talk you through the lending process and outline key tips and traps that will help you to make that credit application run smoother. Alan will also talk about the various funding options that AIB has to offer and the best ones that will help you to grow and scale your business.
Irene Queally
Irene is our key note speaker as she has gained huge experience and knowledge in bringing an idea to her kitchen and, from there, has grown the business so that her organic baby food products are now widely available on the shelves of national supermarkets. She has done this on a small budget and she will outline many of the clever ideas that helped her business to grow. She has an extremely interesting and inspiring story to tell that would not only benefit food businesses but any small business. She will give you an insight into how and why and where she started from and how she has marketed and promoted her products, how she got listed with some of the supermarket chains and what are her plans for the future in terms of overseas markets and other ideas. I was lucky to hear a lot of her story in a café on Barronstrand street one afternoon over a month ago and I am looking forward to hearing what she has been up to since.
It will be an interesting and informative afternoon, so if you know someone in the food and beverage industry, please share this blog with them. You will learn, network with your colleagues, get fed and there will be even some locally produced products to take home with you. What more could you ask for?
For more updates/information check out our resources page.
